Being Someone Else's Light
by DenizenofTwilight
Summary: In which Estelle just wants to have a normal date of horse riding with Yuri, but Yuri wisely opts to help Estelle to get over one of her phobias instead. Short and sweet Yuri/Estelle fluff. Most likely AU, but could possibly fit into canon.


**Being Someone Else's Light**

If she was being honest, Estellise had never liked hot-air balloons. Though before she'd met Yuri, she'd never left home, of course-so she wouldn't have been able to go on one anyway, but... As one of her favorite relatives had fallen ill and died after having gone to a balloon festival, she was loath to go up in one.

That was why when Yuri had insisted that they go to a hot-air balloon sendoff for a date, that Estelle had been certain to make the ordeal about something entirely different from the would-be-blimps.

She'd still go with Yuri to the event, so as not to hurt his feelings, she knew, but she was far more interested in galloping with her horses over the vast terrain, or something.

Yuri, too, for all of his protesting certainly seemed to be enjoying racing horses with Estelle in the back of the lot, the day the event aired.

Really, it was much too crowded and hot for Estelle to even want to be around all those people at the balloon fest. So, feeling the wind in her hair, seeing Yuri enjoy the horse's stride beneath him, and just being freer than she could remember being in a long time: it was all something truly worthwhile.

"Isn't this fun, Yuri?!" Estelle whooped, as she took the moment to throw her hands up from the horse's reigns, and to secure the hair tie that was beginning to fall loose from her locks. To be honest, she wasn't even certain if Yuri could hear her over the gale, but she supposed if nothing else, this was a good opportunity for him to practice his lip-reading…

...And to completely miss what the pinkette was saying, and to go in the opposite direction of where she had wanted, apparently.

Sighing dramatically, as she made Calser rear up so as to go back the other way, Estelle wondered just what Yuri was planning. Surely they wouldn't want the horses so close to the balloons, would they? The pinkette could just imagine the sort of accidents that could come from such an affair.

But as Calser began charging all the faster, Estellise finally caught up with Yuri, and she saw that walking precariously close to the food stands-and the balloons that put her ill at ease-was _exactly_ what the ex-knight was doing.

"Yuri!" Estelle admonished, as she stopped Calser as gracefully as she was able, and quickly bowed to all the people she was no doubt disturbing. "I think… I think this idea of yours must be flawed: being around all of this food is just going to make the horses restless. And if we get too close to the balloons, we might bump into them and make them fly away before they're ready to."

"Actually, Estelle…" Yuri said good-naturedly as he bit into a caramel apple and with a small smile to his face, but... since his tone was far too innocent, Estelle couldn't help but cross her arms and regard her love suspiciously. "That's sort of the plan," Yuri explained at once. "I mean, c'mon! After riding on the horses at such a speed, it would probably be a real adrenaline rush to fall from them and into the basket, before it goes up into the air. Right? Right!"

"B-but…" Estelle began much more sadly than she would have liked, as she began fiddling with her necklace and remembering things she rather wouldn't have. "Don't you remember that my one cousin died after having going up in one of these? Not only do I think it dangerous, Yuri, but it holds a lot of bad memories for me, okay?"

Sighing himself at that, though Estelle sensed that Yuri's reason for sounding so long-suffering was much different than what hers had been, Yuri helped Estelle get down from her perch on her stallion, and put a hand on her shoulder before explaining as nicely as he could.

"Actually, Estelle. I heard about that, and about your phobia with hot-air balloons. And to tell the truth…" Yuri said, as he scratched his cheek awkwardly-no doubt keenly aware of the fact they were drawing attention to themselves among all the pedestrians now. "That's why I brought you here: to help you get you over your fear. It wasn't a balloon that Scott Key died from, but rather a Zeppelin, you see?

"Now come on, Estelle. Just use your famed optimism and everything will be all right, okay? I mean... that's just the sort of person you are, right?"

_Oh, Yuri, you're so sweet_, Estelle thought, as she held her hand over her beating heart. And though there were a lot of things she could say and do to assure Yuri of how much his efforts and words meant to her, Estelle found the best thing to do was to just be what he told her to be... And to be the light in the place that she'd once associated plainly with darkness.

Brushing the sand from her blouse, and taking one last, wistful look at the now putrefying horse behind her, Estelle stepped into the hot-air balloon and was off.

Maybe it wasn't as fun as falling into the basket at a break-neck speed from the horse would have been (though Estelle still rolled her eyes for that particular idea of Yuri's). But as Estelle started going up, up, up-and enjoying herself immensely, as she waved at Yuri-she found it was still just as good an experience.

**Author's Note: A short and simple Yuri/Estelle one-shot that I wrote. Here's hoping it wasn't too terrible. Tbh, I haven't even finished the game yet. -dodges bullets- So here's hoping it's not too flawed. But I got inspired to write this after having gotten the second to last paragraph as a prompt. It just seemed cute and all for them, so IDK. -shrugs- **

**Here's hoping it makes sense and that isn't too weird. I'm really sick atm and delirious on cough syrup, so... any weirdness from this can probably be attributed to that fact.**

**Anyway, see this as AU, if you have to, and expect more ToV stuff from me in the future (if this wasn't too awful, that is).**

**Thanks for reading and everything, guys.**

**-Shanna**

**P.S. I actually don't have Microsoft Word right now, so if there are any huge mistakes here, I apologize PROFUSELY. I combed over this as much as I could, whilst being sick, but I'll probably try going through this again tomorrow when I'm hopefully feeling better/have access to a better computer.**


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